Henry Kasdon learned to break dance on his mom's tennis court. Now he's a dance teacher who is astute enough about marketing to change the names of moves from the Brooklyn to the Brookline. He is a successful dancer; he's getting ready to switch careers to trial law. “I want my kids to be taken care of,” he says. Not that he has any now, but Kasdon is a man with a plan. Read more
I write a lot about how people have to be likeable to get what they want in life. I get so frustrated, though, because everyone thinks they are likeable. Maybe to their dog, yes, but in my experience most people are not nearly as likeable as they think they are. Read more
I interviewed Gloria Steinem. She’s promoting her new undertaking, GreenStone Media, a radio station founded by women for women. There were nine bloggers on the call with me and we each got to ask a question. Read more
I want to take on one intern for the fall semester. I say semester, though you don’t need to be in college.
My motivation is two-fold. Of course, I want to offload stuff I don’t like to do on someone who might like to do it. But also, I want to mentor someone (see my bit on that in the post below). And I want to have conversations with someone about the topics I write about and should write about. The internship will be a great learning experience, but it will not be a great financial experience: unpaid. Read more
One of my best experiences as a mentor was when I inherited an IT department where the average age was 18. There were many men and one woman and no leaders. I sniffed around for who might be good at what in preparation for a departmental reorg. The woman, Sari, looked homeless at best, a drug addict at worst. Read more
Are you considering entrepreneurship? It’s all the rage right now because the bar at the start line has never been lower. Here are nine new ideas about entrepreneurship that will make you feel like you can do it, too. Right now: Read more
Here are three tidbits I’ve collected that haven’t fit in other places over the week.
Condoleeza has a workplace crush
Maureen Dowd brings to light the evidence that Condoleeza Rice has a crush on the Canadian Foreign Minister Peter McKay. Scroll down in Dowd’s column to see a great photo of the two of them looking at each other, which reminds me of all the times I’ve fallen in love — how exciting it is. The photo also reminds me of all the crushes I’ve had with people I worked with. In each instance, unfulfilled sexual tension at the office made my work life more productive. Really. Probably due to some sort of synergy and that I was so in tune with how the other person was working. Side note: Peter McKay is so cute.
(Hat tip: Ben from AMVER) Read more
I write a lot about the importance of specializing in your career. The bottom line is that if you are great at what you do, you will get better hours, better pay, and more flexibility in how you run your life. But no one is great at everything. Read more
Wendy Waters suggested that I write about how to deal with disabilities in the workplace. So here’s a story about my friend Ann, who has a really deep voice. It isn’t a sexy deep voice; it sounds more like Oscar the Grouch with a sore throat or Darth Vader on Prozac. Read more
I was at the World Trade Center when it fell. At each anniversary that passes I write my story, and each year it changes a little. This year, I have been thinking about that moment when I accepted death. Read more
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